Quest for the imagination at Higgins Armory Museum

Known for its collection of medieval armor, Worcester's Higgins Armory Museum sets out to capture a younger audience with new fantastical exhibit.

Chris Bergeron

Legendary archaeologist Rufus Excalibur Bell has gone missing from one of his far-flung treks to gather rare specimens for the Higgins Armory Museum.

After departing with his pet penguin Benjamin, the museum's eccentric Curator of Curiosities left no clue to his whereabouts except two rooms stuffed with rare artifacts that defy categorization.

Frantic staff at the Worcester museum suspect a droll Somerville artist named Hilary Scott who wears an upswept moustache might know more than he's saying.

Searching Professor Bell's cluttered study and adjoining storeroom, they've found a baby mermaid, the Golden Fleece of Jason and the Argonauts, the wings of Daedalus and numerous artifacts previously consigned to folk tales and mythology.

Skeptics are asking what such exotic artifacts are doing in a museum best known for its collection of medieval armor.

Now across the hall from displays of ancient weaponry, visitors can see outrageous things like a harpy's claw, Faust's contract with Mephistopheles and the legs of the Babylonian demon Pazuzu who possessed the main character in "The Exorcist."

If you're among the doubters, Higgins Executive Director Nikki Andersen invites you to visit "Beyond Belief," the museum's wildly original new exhibit that expands its mission from the Middle Ages into the realm of imagination.

"We really wanted an exhibit that's going to work for all ages. We needed something for pre-schoolers, young children and adults," said Andersen, who took over the museum last July. "As we look to the future, we certainly knew we had a bifurcated audience of families and adults. We were looking for an exhibition that would span those audiences and be engaging to both."

Subtitled "The Curious Collection of Professor Rufus Excalibur Bell," the exhibit will run through 2011 while the museum redesigns its interactive Quest Gallery.

"Beyond Belief" suits the Higgins' core mission because "Education is about igniting fires, not filling buckets," Andersen said, quoting Irish poet W.B. Yeats. "Rather than fill people with information, we hope to help them engage with exhibits however they choose." she added.

To achieve her goal of broadening the Higgins' appeal, Andersen asked Scott to expand an earlier exhibit to tickle the imaginations of visitors of all ages.

A former Tufts University lecturer in classical political theory turned artist, Scott, who never attended art school, credited Andersen for "throwing down the creative gauntlet" and "giving me a chance many artists don't get."

"This whole thing evolved out of my love for all those curmudgeonly professors and explorers in literature and pop culture like Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain, Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger and Dr. Who," said Scott, whose moustache like his art defies gravity. "It includes aspects of Captain Nemo (from "20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea") and Phileas Fogg (from "Around the World in 80 Days") as well as every indomitable Victorian hero."

He spent much of last year building all the objects in the show including several dragons, Aztec mummies, a Minotaur's hoof and the beak of a gargantuan sea monster called Kraken that almost swallowed Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean."

Scott used his interest in sculpting fantastic toys for his children into creating the Victorian explorer Bell and packing his rooms with specimens from popular folklore, mythology and his own wildly fertile imagination. "They represent those scary things that lurk just outside the lamplight," he said.

For the show, Scott estimated he made about 70 different objects, from mythological creatures to invented artifacts such as the sandals of Sisyphus who was condemned to endlessly push a boulder up a mountaintop.

While looking real in a fantastic way, Scott's creatures are more whimsical than scary and won't frighten children. His creepiest creation, "the last pair of bonded Atlantians," which supposedly grew together after birth, might discourage you from eating shrimp scampi but shouldn't cause nightmares.

Like his fictional professor, Scott is also a madcap explorer following a very funky map. Instead of roaming the Congo or Himalayas, he's molded his own scholarly interests and personal phantasms into stunning art.

Scott has stocked Bell's rooms with creatures that reflect his broad knowledge of fairy tales, classical, pre-Columbian and Asian mythology as well as literary fabulists like Jorge Luis Borges and Norse sagas.

Combining contagious whimsy and far-ranging scholarship, "Beyond Belief" lives up to its name. Beyond being a bold step for the Higgins, Scott's ambitious exhibit breaks boundaries to offer young and adult visitors an experience they can enjoy together.

Higgins Curatorial Assistant Linda Woodland described the exhibit as a family friendly "immersive installation" that "lets visitors jump around" as if rummaging through Bell's own study.

"Our goal is creating an exhibition that stimulates visitors' imaginations while also informing them about mythology and the known story behind some of the objects," she said.

Visitors can leaf through Bell's field notes on his desk and browse through volumes in his bookcase that includes the intriguing title "Things that Bleed and Drool."

Or they can use an interactive computer to identify objects and learn about their origins in myth, legend or folklore.

Visiting Bell's study before the show opened, Scott expressed hopes his many-layered exhibit prompts visitors of all ages "to suspend their disbelief" and let their minds run free.

"Hopefully, I've designed something that will excite children and interest their parents," he said. "It should give parents the opportunity to explain things to their own children at their own level."

THE ESSENTIALS:

The Higgins Armory Museum, 100 Barber Ave., Worcester, is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. The museum is closed on Mondays except for certain Monday holidays.

Admission is $9 for adults (17-59); $8 for senior citizens (60+); $7 for children (6-16), and free for children 5 and younger.

A senior citizen discount is offered Tuesday when tickets for persons 60 or older are $4.

An audio tour of the museum's collection is available for $2.

For more information, call 508-853-6015 or visit www.higgins.org.

To learn more about artist Hilary Scott, visit www.eclecticsculpture.com.

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